ΤΟΥ ΠΛΟΙΟΥ

Τον μοιάζει βέβαια η μικρή αυτή,

με το μολύβι απεικόνισις του.

Γρήγορα καμωμένη, στο κατάστρωμα του πλοίου

ένα μαγευτικό απόγευμα.

Το Ιόνιον πέλαγος ολόγυρα μας.

Τον μοιάζει. Όμως τον θυμούμαι σαν πιο έμορφο.

Μέχρι παθήσεως ήταν αισθητικός,

κι αυτό εφώτιζε την εκφρασί του.

Πιο έμορφος με φανερώνεται

τώρα που η ψυχή μου τον ανακαλεί, απ’ τον Καιρό.

Απ’ τον Καιρό. Είν’ όλ’ αυτά τα πράγματα πολύ παληά—

το σκίτσο, και το πλοίο, και το απόγευμα.

ON THE SHIP

This small sketch

in pencil certainly resembles him.

Done rather fast, on the deck of the ship;

one enchanting afternoon.

The Ionian pelagos all around us.

It resembles him. However, I recall him handsomer.

He was sensitive to the point of suffering,

and this lighted his expression.

He appears even handsomer to me

now that my soul recalls him out of Time.

Out of Time. All these things are very old—

the drawing, and the ship, and the afternoon.

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Poem by Manolis Anagnostakis

I SPEAK

I speak of the last trumpeting of the defeated soldiers

of the last rags from our festive garments

of our children who sell cigarettes to the passers-by
I speak of the flowers that wilted on the graves and

rot in the rain

of the houses gaping with no windows like toothless

skulls

of girls begging and showing the scars of their breasts

I speak of the shoeless mothers who crawl among the ruins

of the conflagrated cities, the corpses piled in

the streets

the pimps poets who shiver by the front steps

during the night

I speak of the endless nights when the light is dimmed

at dawn

of the loaded trucks and the footsteps on the wet

cobblestones

I speak of the prison yard and of the tear of the moribund

but I speak more of the fishermen

who abandoned their nets and followed his steps

and when he got tired they didn’t rest

and when he betrayed them they didn’t reject him

and when he was glorified they turned their eyes the other way

and their comrades spat at them and crucified them

and serene, they took the road that had no end

and their glance didn’t ever darken nor bowed down

standing and lonely amid the horrible loneliness of the crowd

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YANNIS RITSOS-POEMS, Selected Books

Η Ελένη/Helen

Θαρρώ πως κάποιος άλλος μού αφηγήθηκε, με ολότελα άχρωμη φωνή, ένα βράδυ,
τα περιστατικά της ζωής μου· κι εγώ νύσταζα· μέσα μου ευχόμουν
να σταματήσει επιτέλους· να μπορέσω να κλείσω τα μάτια,
να κοιμηθώ. Κι όσο μιλούσε, για να κάνω κάτι, ν’ αντιστέκομαι στον ύπνο,
μετρούσα ένα ένα τα κρόσσια απ’ το σάλι μου, ρυθμίζοντας το μέτρημα
πάνω σ’ ένα κουτό, παιδιάστικο τραγούδι της τυφλόμυγας, ωσότου
να χάσει κάθε νόημα απ’ την επανάληψη. Μα ο ήχος διατηρείται —
θόρυβοι, γδούποι, συρσίματα, — το βουητό της σιωπής, ένα παράταιρο κλάμα,
κάποιος ξύνει τον τοίχο με τα νύχια του, κάποιο ψαλίδι πέφτει στα σανίδια,
κάποιος βήχει· — η παλάμη στο στόμα του, μη και ξυπνήσει έναν άλλον
που κοιμάται μαζί του —ίσως το θάνατό του·— σταματάει· ύστερα πάλι
εκείνο το σπειροειδές βουητό από ’να άδειο πηγάδι, κλεισμένο.

I believe that another person told me one night with a totally

              colorless voice

all my life’s events and I was so sleepy I wished inside me

that he’d finally stop so that I could close my eyes

and sleep And as long as he spoke just to do something

              to resist sleeping

I counted one by one the tassels of my shawl in a certain

             rhythm

with a silly childish game of the blind fly until its

meaning was lost in the repetition But the sound remains –

noises thuds crawling – the buzz of silence a discordant

             cry

someone scratches the wall with his nails a pair of scissors fall

              on the floor planks

someone coughs – his palm on his mouth so that he may not

              wake up the other

who sleeps with him – perhaps his death – he stops then

              again

that spiral buzz from an empty shut-off water well

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Harbor

In the harbor salinity smells

of unfinished voyages

dreamy seagulls

argue for people’s garbage

silent moment hovers between

excited activity of myriad people

going doing yelling living and

your landlocked aching mind 

longs for exotic locales

paradisiacal seabirds

abundance of food

no warring over crumbs of life

like in the harbor you always visit

hoping that you might start

an adventure to faraway lands

exquisite female bodies

as in your dreams

that salinity graces

with certain realism

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Poem by Kiki Dimoula

YESTERDAY

He came back

dressed in the shade of the undefined.

His eyes a sea-floor without a surface

his lips the incision of mystery

his words a vague deck of cards

that flop to one side or the other

his body an incense

and his hair drenched in youth

his laughter the ruin of souls

he hid the wind inside him

that ripped my paper dreams

my tomorrow cried inside me

long time has gone by

since I received the communion of his loss

in a glass gold-plated by autumn

when I covered his picture with the twilight

and I locked up my songs

for a long time that we’ve forgotten each other.

He came back

a day when we unearthed the parchment of our memory

and signed a godly continuance

since we loved each other.

Yesterday we went our separate ways.

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BOY WITH GLASSES

The other boys were playing at the soccer field;

their voices were heard over the roofs of the neighbourhood;

the bounce of the ball was heard too, like a round world

              full of fun and audacity.

However, he was constantly reading by the spring window,

inside a square filled with sad quietness

until, at the end he fell asleep, there, on the window sill

not hearing the voices of his school buddies in the afternoon

nor the early fears of his predominance.

His glasses fell on his nose and resembled a small

bicycle leaning on a tree, far away, in a distant,

sunlit countryside, a bicycle of a child that had died.

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2.

Grant me, my Lord, a ripped page in every book and

this way I walked bravely like the corner of a house

at dawn or a woman who, with her breasts, pushes

sleep aside or the hands of the blind man conniving

          with the fog.

I could, truly, narrate a lot of stories but I’m thinking

to what end since even the most innocent word is

unfortunately a goodbye repeated a thousand times  

          just before the accident

and the server spat in the coffee so he could double

           his wages;

sleep with ravaged musical notes a mix up of dead

           keys

children’s letters to God thrown carelessly onto the

           ground

and the drunk man walks awkwardly not to step

           on them.

In the evening we gathered around the passing rhetor;

the light breeze stirred the fringes of his coat and

ah, perhaps, the secret was hidden in those few words;

           the truly five cents romance

while fame was always passing from the other road.

My story was simple, I was born about twelve thousand

             years ago

embarrassed as well, while my tea was getting cold on

             the other side of earth;

and he always searched persistently in the dark room

“you’ll find it”, I said to him “but what will you do

           after that?”

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Poem by Katerina Anghelaki Rooke

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING

My legs walk  

over the void

my arms embrace emptiness

and my fantasy conspires

with nothingness

what’s happening, what’s happening

and nothing goes ahead?

The haze refuses to become cloud

the moist to become rain

the winter sunrise delays

the reserved melancholy

won’t turn into distress

and the unnamed nightmare

hesitates to mature into a certain fear of death

however here’s a gleaming shadow

I have postponed the coming

of my last day

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Εκτελεστικό Απόσπασμα

     Επειδή όλοι θά `θελαν να `ξεραν πού ανήκαν, οι Μοίρες

είχαν το ρόλο τους κι όχι μονάχα που κεντούσαν του καθενός

την ιστορία αλλά και που βοηθούσαν την εξωτερίκευση

του αληθινού εαυτού που ενάντια θα στέκονταν

στην Άβυσσο και τότε πήραμε τα όπλα να πολεμήσουμε

κατά της ίδιας μας της αρετής να εξαλείψουμε όλα

τα ολόχρυσα χαρίσματά μας για να σταθούμε ολόγυμνοι

μπροστά στο δίδαγμα που από μέσα μας ξεπήδαγε κι από

τα χείλη του σοφού μας μύστη.

     Κι αφού όλοι οι δυστυχισμένοι φοβότανε ανύπαρκτα

φαντάσματα, κατάρες κεντητές και ετικέτες βρώμικες,

εικόνες ζωγραφίσαμε της Κόλασης κι αστραφτερό

το Καθαρτήριο παρουσιάσαμε σ’ άσπρες σελίδες 

να τους κρατούν δεσμώτες και μπροστά στο εκτελεστικό

απόσπασμα με μάτια καλυμένα.

     Κι αυτό, είπε, ήταν σωστό και δίκαιο.

~Μου αρέσουν όποιοι μοιάζουν με βαριές σταγόνες

 που αργοπέφτουν από τα κατάμαυρα σύννεφα

 που σκεπάζουν τους ανθρώπους.

Execution Squad

Since everyone always liked to know

where they belonged, the Fates played their role:

not only they embroidered everyone’s history

but they also helped externalize one’s true self

that stood opposite the Abyss and we took

up arms to fight against our virtues, to obliterate

all our golden grace that we would stand naked

before the intuition that sprang up from deep

within us and from the lips of our initiate.

And since the desperate were afraid of in-existent

ghosts, new curses and dirty etiquettes,

we drew images of the Inferno on snow white pages

and we presented the gleaming Purgatory to keep

them eager to learn and blindfolded before

the execution squad.

And this, He said, was good and just.

I like those who resemble heavy drops of rain that

slowly fall from the black clouds which cover men.

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